Critical Lens: Of Mice and Men & Tears of a Tiger
by IndianaParkWars
Summary: This is another essay of mine. Realtes a quote to those two books. Rated K plus: Brief gorey violence.


Critical Lens Essay

Stephen R. Covey once stated, "While we are free to chose our actions, we are not free to chose our consequences of our actions." This quote says people have control over their decisions but they have little to nix over the result. I agree wit this quote because it is absolutely true. You have control over a choice you make, but not so much over the effect it has. This relates to the novels, Tears of a Tiger by Sharon M. Draper and Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck. Both works of literature contain characters that make choices leading to dreadful outcomes of which aren't in their power.

In the novel Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, primary character, Lennie Small, makes awful decisions leading to deadly consequences. Lennie is a mentally challenged albeit lovable guy. He is frightfully bulk and as strong as an ox. He seems scary at first sight but he is very friendly. He wouldn't hurt a fly but sometimes he is inadvertently harmful. His role model and best friend is George Milton. They both work on a ranch lifting hay bales and herding horses. One day, before working on the ranch, the two men were standing around on the sidewalk until Lennie spotted a woman wearing a smooth red dress. Lennie extremely fancies soft things. He loves petting them and touching them. Little did he know, women feel sexually offended when other random men grab their dress. Lennie started petting and fondling the dress. She became alarmed and screamed running away alerting the entire town. Everyone saw Lennie as a pervert and started chasing the two men out of the town. Lennie had the choice to touch her dress or try and resist feeling the luscious silky fabric that he adores so. But after making the wrong choice, he had no control over what she would do whatsoever. He couldn't make her not scream or anything. From there on out, Lennie was unempowered. The two men were forced out of town and fled from Weed, California.

George Milton, another main character in the novel, is a victim of making major internal decisions leading to dreadful consequences. As explained in the preceding paragraph, he was Lennie's best friend and idol. Lennie looked up to George for everything and was as loyal as a dog. They both are skinners on the ranch as already stated. They work with a grouchy, conceited man named Curley. He is bellicose and mean, always on the verge of starting a fight. He has a wife, as referred to as Curley's wife, who is friendly and kind. One day, her and Lennie were talking and Lennie decided to start petting her soft hair. Unintentionally, he started vigorously stroking her hair and she tried pulling away and he held on, instantly snapping her neck. So he ran away hiding in the woods. Curley soon found out along with the others and they went out to hunt him down. Knowing Curley, he would have brutally murdered and tortured him. George couldn't let that happen to his best friend and went out to find him. George encountered Lennie and had to face the biggest decision of his life. Whether to kill Lennie there or let Curley get to him. They couldn't run away anymore and letting Curley harm Lennie is out of the question. But killing your best friend is mad. It takes a lot of courage and bravery to do that. George was intrepid and did what he had to do. He shot Lennie in the back of the head killing him with little pain. The decision was crucifying but it was the right one. George had the ability to kill Lennie but had no control over the feelings of regret and depression after it.

In the novel Tears of a Tiger by Sharon M. Draper, character Keisha Montgomery had an important connection to the quote. Keisha is a sweet and friendly 17-year old African American girl. She is best friends with Rhonda and her boyfriend is Andy Jackson. Their relationship was great; they always had good times together. But after a tragic accident, Andy became depressed. Whenever they went out, Andy spontaneously broke out into tears. At first, she comforted him and did everything she could to help. But after a while, their relationship became tense and he started getting on her nerves. She explained how he was getting down and feeling negative. She wasn't able to take it or tolerate his behavior. You couldn't blame Keisha for it, its hard to deal with constant pessimism from your boyfriend. But when she dumped him, it was at a difficult time making Andy's life only harder. He soon committed suicide. She had the chose to end the relationship but she was oblivious to his suicidal thoughts.

Andy Jackson is another character in the novel Tears of a Tiger. In fact, he is the main character. Andy is a 17 year old African American boy that goes to Hazlewood High along with his friends B.J., Tyrone, and Rob. As previously stated, he has a sweet girlfriend named Keisha. Andy loves to play basketball and is on the team. Because of this, he is very popular and funny. He has his drivers license and made the worst choice of his life in a car. After a game, him and his friends decided to have a few drinks and go out driving. It probably didn't seem so bad at first to them, but it led to the death of two boys. They were driving around town, honking, swerving and being silly. Rob had his elongated legs on the dashboard to stretch out and Andy ended up driving the car into the wall. It violently hits the wall and three of the boys jump out of the car. Rob was stuck in the car with his feet in the windshield. They couldn't help him, but only watched him die. Andy was then forever depressed until the day of his suicide. Andy could have drank the alcohol or not. But he chose to drink it, leading to a terrible consequence. He unfortunately had no control over it and could only face the regret. With a bad choice, comes a bad result.

The novels Tears of Tiger by Sharon M. Draper and Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck relate to a quote by Stephen R. Covey because the characters have choices to make and consequences to face. The quote read, "While we are free to chose our actions, we are not free to chose our consequences of our actions." This quote simply says you have the ability to make a choice but you can't do anything about the upshot. I most definitely agree with the quote because it clearly states how your actions can be controlled but the consequences are involuntary.


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